Lost in What's Never Going to Be
by Bookaholic711
Summary: You live in the present; the past is past and the future will come. This is how Rose has always lived. But when she gets to Hogwarts, she starts to slip, and suddenly she finds her whole life off track.


****Disclaimer: All characters, locations, etc. belong to J.K. Rowling. Quotes and book belong to John Green. No copyright infringement is intended in the posting of this story.****

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_"Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia."_ _–John Green_

Rose has been raised on this mentality. What had already happened was past; there was no point in dwelling on it. But thinking about what was yet to come… well, it was really the same thing, wasn't it? It was thinking about something that made no difference to _right now. _All that mattered to right now was, in fact, _right now_. Carpe diem. Seize the day. You'll never have this moment back again.

That was what Hermione Weasley had raised her daughter to believe. Think ahead, plan for the future, but don't imagine what it's going to be like. You'll know what it's like when you get there. Imagining it now is only wasting your time.

And for her entire childhood, Rose lived in the moment. She never put herself in place she'd been before; she never tried to image the places she would go. Rose would think about her mistakes and the places that she wanted to go, but she thought about them from the present, because the present was what mattered.

It was this very idea that kept her sane at Muggle Primary School. While she went through the tedious steps of learning to read – even though she already knew how – Rose lived in that moment. She didn't think of the books that she'd read in the past; she didn't image how much more fun her education would be at Hogwarts. She was very firmly in that classroom, living in that exact moment.

Her cousin Albus would sometimes ask what she thought Hogwarts was going to be like, but she never answered. To answer his question would be to break rule number one. She did not envision the future.

Though Rose had often heard her mother tell her father not to think about the future because it was just like living in the past, she had never really understood the she knew was that her mother's first rule was to live in the now.

So, on September 1st, 2016, about five months after her eleventh birthday, Rose and her various cousins boarded the Hogwarts Express. Albus' older brother James shooed his brother and Rose away from him, claiming that they would have to make their own friends at some point. Rose and Al scampered off to find a compartment, settling for an empty one near the back of the train. And, for what must have been the millionth time, Al asked her the taboo question.

"What do you think Hogwarts will be like?"

Rose gave him the typical response. "I dunno, Al."

As per usual, her cousin rolled his eyes. "Think, Rosie."

She shrugged and looked out the window, trying to avoid the topic. She had not thought about Hogwarts at all. There were no expectations; therefore she could not be disappointed. Al was terrified of being placed in Slytherin, but Rose had not thought about it. She had not imagined her future. That was the rule.

Rose maintained her silence until they got off the train. She did not speak as they got in the boats. She looked at that castle, but she did not image the insides. She didn't think about her classes or the friends she would make. Instead, she sat in awe of the beauty all around her.

And then it happened. She saw him.

It wasn't anything dramatic. There was no love at first (technically second) sight. They did not fight. They did not even speak. For all intents and purposes, absolutely nothing happened.

It was the most significant moment of Rose's existence.

That's all it was, just a moment. One tiny, fleeting image. A glimpse of something that was yet to come. All she imagined was him walking towards her. That's it. Just walking. Picking up one foot and taking a step towards her.

How ironic, Rose would think in later years, that it was a single step that took her off track for years. One very small step for the imaginary future of Scorpius Malfoy, and one extremely long and lengthy detour for Rose Weasley's life.

After that, Rose couldn't stop herself. At first it started out small. Imaging a teacher asking a question seconds before they did, picturing Al taking the next bite of his breakfast. But then it started getting bigger. Imagining the peace of the weekend, picturing the Christmas holidays. It wasn't until nearly the end of Second Year that Rose realized she was doing it. It was at the end of Second Year that Rose first imagined something that didn't happen.

She imagined that at some point before the end of her year, she would make friends other than Albus. Al, surely, had friends other than her and the rest of her family. But Rose kept to herself. She had always hoped that some day, one of the girls from her dorm would ask her if she wanted to eat with them. Hope had turned into imagination, and suddenly she was positive that someday it would happen.

But no miracles happened before the end of her Second Year, and Rose went home feeling sad. It took her nearly half of the summer to figure out why. She was disappointed. She'd spent all of that time imagining that she would have friends, and then nothing had happened. She was horribly disappointed with the other girls in her year for not reaching out to her.

Rose decided that upon her return to school, she would have to make an effort to befriend them. She planned all summer, writing in her journal and coming up with possible conversation topics. But the moment she got back to Platform 9 ¾ and waved to one of her classmates, she went back to dreaming. She played the scenario over and over again in her mind. Thalia Brown would come up to her after breakfast and ask if they could walk to Charms together. Rose would smile and say sure, and off they would go. The friendship would blossom quickly, and Thalia would tell all of the other Gryffindor girls how cool Rose was. There was no need to shun her anymore.

Years passed. Nothing happened. Rose imagined and envisioned and did everything that she had been taught not to do growing up, and she passed three years of her life in constant disappointment. No matter how many answers she got right on a test, her reality was never quite as good as she had thought it would be.

Rose was, quite frankly, stuck in a rut. She was unhappy, but she couldn't stop. Telling her mother was absolutely out of the question. After all, she had spent the last five years breaking rule number one nearly every minute. Hermione would be furious.

And so it was that Rose found herself in the library in March of her fifth year, trying to study for OWLs, but instead imagining what it would be like to be watching the Quidditch final. She could almost feel the bleachers beneath her knees instead of the wooden library chair. Wind whipped against her face and Al raced around the pitch, the Snitch grasped firmly in hands. Although her eyes were supposed to be following him, she could help but let them flicker over to the Slytherin Keeper. Surprisingly, he did not look dejected. In fact, he looked happy.

But more importantly, he was looking right back at her. _I love him_, she thought to herself.

Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and she was back in the library.

_Why on earth did I think that? I don't love him. I don't even know him. We've never said more than two words to each other!_

Rose nodded to herself, feeling confident that it was nothing more than a brief lapse of sanity. Truthfully, she didn't know anything about him. She didn't care to.

_Then why is he sitting right in front of me?_

Rose simply nodded again, acknowledging her subconscious, but not really listening to it.

_Wait… what?_

She looked up, straight into the mercury gray eyes of a perfect enigma.

Oh damn.

"Hey there Rose," he said, sitting down. She narrowed her eyes. She wasn't kidding herself when she said that they didn't know each other. Their relationship existed purely in her mind, and even there it was not a particularly close one.

"Malfoy," she said in acknowledgement.

"Are you all right?"

Rose placed her quill – which hadn't been doing anything for quite some time – back on the table.

"What?"

"Your cousin sent me to find you. He's worried."

"Al?"

It occurred to Rose that Albus and Scorpius had been friends for a while. How had she missed that before? Well, she didn't exactly spend a lot of time with Al anymore. She spent most of her time, well, here. In the library, imagining things that would never happen.

"… mum says your grades are slipping and you haven't talked to him in weeks and are you even listening to me?"

Rose shook out of her imagination yet again. "No," she said honestly. "I was thinking about the Quidditch final."

"Anyway," he continued, ignoring that fact that she had no idea what he was talking about. "He sprouted off something about not thinking about the future and insisted that you would only talk to someone you barely knew."

"So he sent you."

Scorpius nodded, his blond hair flopping into his eyes. Impatiently, he pushed it out of the way. "And clearly I'm not welcome here either." He got up from his chair, and Rose made no move to stop him. But before leaving, he leaned over the table, resting his hands on either side of her untouched books, his face only inches from hers. "But Rose," he added, swallowing hard, "if you need to talk, I'm here. Always."

Before Malfoy had even gotten up, Rose tipped over into imagination. She and Malfoy rolling around in the grass, laughing and…

"Scorpius."

He was two tables away before she managed to drag herself out of her head, out of the future, but somehow he heard her whisper. But he made record time back to the chair across from her. Scorpius was sitting down even though she hadn't asked, and his hand was on her's on the table.

"I'm addicted," she said, speaking the words aloud for the first time. There was a kind of freedom in them. Like something about realizing that it was true made the burden a little less.

"You're addicted to what?" Scorpius asked, barely concealed panic on his face.

Rose scoffed, imagining his surprise when she told him. "The future."

His reaction was not sufficient. His jaw didn't drop as far as it was supposed to, his hand did not go up to ruffle his hair. "You're addicted to the future," he said, flatly.

Rose sighed, disappointed. "I can't stop imagining it," she whined. "It was rule number one growing up: you live in the present. Think about the future, but don't envision it. But at some point… I lost that."

"Do you know when?" he asked. He leaned towards her, eyes intense over the table. She imagined him leaning in just a little more, their lips brushing.

Rose pulled herself into reality and gave her brain a subtle reminder that she didn't even know him.

"Well?" he prompted.

"Sorry," Rose said. "What was the question?"

"When did it start?"

The answer took a surprising little amount of time to find. Perhaps she'd known it all along. Perhaps it was the reason that she'd been fantasizing about him since Al had started dating. Maybe it was the reason that he made it in to every single glimpse of the future that she thought about it, even though they'd barely spoken.

"It started with you."

Scorpius shook his head, and his hair fell into his eyes yet again. In a second he would reach up and brush it away…

Only he didn't. Instead, he reached over and grabbed her other hand. "What do you mean?"

"It was only the second time I'd ever seen you," Rose explained, trying to think of a way to make the story not sound creepy or stalkerish. "It wasn't like it was a huge thing, but just… I imagined you taking a step towards me. Just one step. I couldn't even see your face in the image. It was just you picking up your foot and coming towards me."

Scorpius closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "You mean in the Entrance Hall on the first night we got to Hogwarts?"

Rose's breath hitched. "You remember it?"

He nodded. "I have no idea why, but I do. I remember because it was the first time I ever hesitated to do something." He closed his eyes and let go of one of Rose's hands to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I was so close."

"Close to what?" she asked, confused. Her free hand wandered away from the table to run through her hair, a nervous habit of hers.

"To taking that step. I almost came over to you, Rose."

"You… what?"

"I almost came over to you," he explained. "But I hesitated. And the McGonagall came, and I didn't."

"Er…" Rose said, pulling one strand of bronze hair in front of her face, just for an excuse not to look at him. "Right."

There was silence. He would reach out his hand pull her's away from her hair, push the strand behind her hair, lean in and…

"Rose?"

"Sorry," she said again. "What?"

"I said do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head, dropping the bronze lock and letting her hand fall back to the table. "No. Not really."

He nodded. "Fine."

And he left.

So Rose went on with her addiction to the future. She imagined everything, and nothing chalked up to her expectations. She returned to her world of disappointment. Her grades were never as good as she thought they were going to be. The Hogsmede days were never as much fun as she had envisioned.

Her birthday came, and her family was not as excited as she'd expected at breakfast. Her teachers weren't as nice as she had hoped. And when she returned to the Common Room to open her presents, they weren't satisfactory.

No, it wasn't until she got up to her dormitory that something changed.

There was a little gift on her bed. It was rectangular, and Rose immediately figured out that it was a book. There was no tag, however, and everyone had already given Rose a present. For the first time in her life, Rose was intrigued.

She tore off the wrapping, revealing – as she had thought – a book. It was a black hardcover. The cover featured a trail of smoke coming from a candle. On the inside, there was a tiny inscription.

_Rose,_

_You're not the only one who has your problem. But maybe this will help._

_Happy Birthday_

It was not signed.

It was not enough, no, not nearly enough, but Rose was not disappointed. She was curious. Undoubtedly and almost painfully curious. The only thing that would cure her frantic curiosity was reading this book. So she opened it, and she began to read.

Suddenly, she was whipped off into a world that was better than the future. There, there was no Rose, there was no Scorpius, and there was no Albus. There was Miles and there was Alaska, and they were more real to Rose than her own futures were.

And then it happened.

She tripped over something familiar.

"Imaging the future is a kind of nostalgia…You just use the future to escape the present."

Something clicked in her head, and suddenly Rose got it. The familiar idea was back, and this time she understood why her mother had forbidden her from imagining what was going to come. Really, she'd known it all along; it was the source of her disappointment.

Thinking about the future took away from the now. It didn't just guarantee that you would be disappointed when the true future came, it also wasted the moment. You would never get that moment back, and you were using the future to escape from it. She was using the future to escape from… herself.

And so it was that everything changed again. This understanding, it suddenly made her mother's rule so much easier to follow. Because by imaging this future, she was insuring that it wouldn't come. Not only was she negating what would come, but she was losing the chance to have her fantasy come true. Because that fantasy needed Rose out there right now, working for it.

So she did.

The next morning, she asked Thalia if she could sit with her and her friends at breakfast. They all smiled at her and nodded, and Jasmine Brown leaned across the table and asked, "What took you so long?"

She sat next to Al in Charms and asked him what he wanted to do that afternoon. He looked shocked, and for the first time in ages, that shock was satisfactory. And when he finally picked his jaw up off the floor to respond that he wanted to play wizards' chess, Rose smiled. But she didn't imagine it. No, she was thinking about that moment, about the Charms spell she was supposed to be learning. And though she was looking forward to playing chess with Al, what mattered right then was the notes sitting right in front of her.

As she walked to the Great Hall with her new friends, there was a bounce in her step. She realized that it was not the future that was the enemy; imaging the future was not harmful in the act. It was getting caught up in the future that was bad. It was okay to think about playing chess with Al, but it wasn't okay to image that she was going to win, or that it was going to be ridiculously fun. Thinking about the future was okay, but imagining it, imagining it was like getting caught up in the past all over again.

That day at lunch, she went over to the Slytherin table and asked Scorpius Malfoy if he wanted to go to Hogsmede with her the next Saturday. His jaw dropped nearly as far as Al's and Rose giggled.

"I… sure," he said, eyebrows approaching his hairline. "Of course."

"Great," Rose grinned. Then she leaned in, almost positive. "Thanks for the book."

If it was possible, Scorpius looked even more surprised, but then all of the shock wiped off his face and he positively beamed at her.

"You read it." It was not a question.

She nodded and turned to go back to the Gryffindor table, giving him one fleeting glimpse.

That night, Rose and Al played chess. And for the first time in a very long time, she had fun. She laughed with Al's friends and poked at her cousin and completely and thoroughly lost the game. She went up to her dormitory with a very full feeling inside.

As she crawled into bed, the black book caught her eye. Reaching out for it, she opened it up to a certain page and stared at the familiar quotation that now made so much more sense.

On Saturday, she and Scorpius walked to Hogsmede together. Rose talked to him about the book and how much she'd loved it. She raved over the quotation, saying how she was practically raised on the mentality, but she'd never understood it, never had anyone put it in words quite that clear before. But she wouldn't forget the man who said it; he'd gotten it just right.

They sat down in The Three Broomsticks and ordered coffee. Scorpius grinned at Rose.

"Actually," he said. "It wasn't the author who came up with it. It was said to him by his wife on their first date in a coffee shop."

Rose looked down at her cup of coffee and then back up at Scorpius. "Well then," she said, eyes twinkling, "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia."

Scorpius grinned back at her. "That it is, Rose Weasley," he lifted his cup and took a sip. "That it is."

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_AN: Just a couple of things, my dear reader. _

_1) In case you don't read disclaimers (because honestly, who does?) the book Rose was reading was Looking for Alaska, by John Green. It's an incredible book, and I really recommend it, though it is definitely for the older teen and adult audience. And well, since we're on the topic of John Green..._

_2) Yes, it's true. That was not really John's quote. It was, in fact, said to him by his wife Sarah on their very first date. How do I know? Because John and his brother Hank have a Youtube channel (vlogbrothers). Go. Check them out. Join the nerdfighters. Your life will become much better. I promise you. _

_3) Also about the quote! I do realize that this is not what John meant with the quote. However, in the context in the novel and Rose's understanding of it, this way was the way that it made sense to interpret it for this story (Talk about bad grammar...). Neither John nor Sarah necessarily meant that you should never look into the future, so please don't think that that was the message of this story! In fact, in his other book, Paper Towns, John specifically says something that **directly** contradicts the way that I interpreted the quote for these purposes. To fully understand what John meant by the quote, you really have to read the book. So go! Read it! It's fantastic!_

_4) This is a post for Project PULL. Link on my profile. The project is now** closed**, but that doesn't mean that you can't participate in smaller ways! :)_

___5) Reviews and I share a love/hate relationship. Many of you know this. Please leave one of the reviews that I love. Namely, an informative review. One that will help me to become a better writer by giving me tips, telling me what I did right and what I did wrong. Even a review that tells me that my piece sucks, if it explains WHY, is a review that I will love._

_Thanks for reading!_


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